


oh boy, you're the devil

by rocketshiptospace



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Jace is the devil in this, M/M, so that's fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27307102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocketshiptospace/pseuds/rocketshiptospace
Summary: Simon was just doodling, okay? He was supposed to be doing his Econ 301 homework, but he got distracted and started doodling some weird made up symbols in the margins. Honestly, he nevermeantto summon the literal honest to goddevil.Yet, there he is, in the middle of Simon’s bedroom, looking surprisingly like a human 20 something year old; Lucifer ‘Actually I Prefer Jace’ Morgenstern.Or, Simon accidentally summons the devil. And then he goes and falls in love with him. It's a whole lot of complicated.
Relationships: Simon Lewis/Jace Wayland
Comments: 10
Kudos: 229
Collections: SHBingo 20-21





	oh boy, you're the devil

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO
> 
> I'm back to writing Jimon I guess? Anyway, I started this fic all the way back in 2018 and now FINALLY here it is!!! Just in time for Halloween too!!!!! Happy Halloween, and please enjoy! :D
> 
> (This is a SH Bingo prompt fill: Free Space)

Simon was just doodling, okay? He was supposed to be doing his Econ 301 homework, but he got distracted and started doodling some weird made up symbols in the margins. Honestly, he never _meant_ to summon the literal honest to god _devil._

Yet, there he is, in the middle of Simon’s bedroom, looking surprisingly like a human 20 something year old; Lucifer ‘Actually I Prefer Jace’ Morgenstern.

Now there’s a lot of sensible, logical things Simon could have said at this exact moment. Things like, “Oh no! Satan!” or, “AAAH! The devil!”, or even just a “WHAT THE FUCK!”. But no. Instead, Simon opts for, “Where are your horns?”

“Not this again,” ‘Actually It’s Jace’ says, visibly deflating from his previously quite threatening stance and settling for something decidedly exasperated. “Some idiot in the Dark Ages came up with that. Haven’t been able to shake it since.”

“So no horns?” Simon clarifies, enough over his shock to observe ‘Jace’ a little more clearly. He’s actually quite attractive, with broad shoulders, muscular _everything,_ and a face that reminds Simon that the devil was, in fact, once an angel.

“No horns,” Jace says, rather testily. “Now please tell me why you summoned me here.”

But Simon’s stuck on that little fact now. “Not even ones you can like, summon at will? Wait, can you change your appearance? Could you just will a pair of horns into existence? Because I really think-“

Jace cuts him off. “No horns,” he says, through gritted teeth. “And if you don’t stop yammering on about them right now I will summon the nearest goat, rip _their_ horns off and shove them right up your-“

“All right, all right!” Simon says, holding up his hands in defense. “No more talk about horns.”

“Great.” Jace says, still looking slightly peeved. “Now we’ve sorted that out, can you _finally_ tell me why you’ve summoned me here?”

“Oh! Right, yeah, good question,” Simon says, scrunching up his nose. “So. That might have been kind of an accident.”

“An accident,” Jace repeats, “You summoned the ruler of the underworld by _accident._ ”

Simon pulls a face. “When you say it like that it sounds really stupid.”

“That’s because it _is_ ,” Jace exclaims incredulously. “Do you have _any_ idea how many times I get summoned per day alone? The fact that I actually decided to show up for your request should be regarded as an _honor_ and now you’re telling me it was an _accident_?”

“Yeah man, I was just doodling, and I think I accidentally drew your summoning symbol, I’m sorry you went through all this effort. I could like, uh, pay you? For the troubles? Mind you I am a poor student so I really only have like three dollars and maybe I can throw in a box of macaroni? It’s unopened, I just like having one in stock so I could-“

“Don’t bother,” Jace says, interrupting Simon’s rambling. “Can you believe that this is quite literally the weirdest thing that has happened to me _all week,_ and I met a guy just yesterday who liked to snack on the toenails of his murder victims.”

“Right,” Simon says, feelings slightly queasy at the thought. “Well, I mean, I’m really truly sorry, but I have this Econ 301 exam next week so I _really_ got to get back to studying so if you could-“

“Are you kicking me out? Are you really kicking _Satan_ out of your house right now?” Jace sounds absolutely flabbergasted.

“Shit, that doesn’t offend you, does it? Please don’t set my underwear on fire.” Simon says, acutely aware of the fact that Jace’s relatively young appearance hides the powers of an ancient creature that could easily kill him, and then force him to do Econ 301 homework for the rest of eternity.

“Why would I? Never mind. I just. It was nice meeting you, eh-“ “Simon.” “Right. It was nice meeting you, Simon, but I’m leaving now. I would also prefer it if you could refrain from doodling my summoning symbol from now on. Don’t really feel like going through this whole ordeal ever again.”

Simon salutes him. “Ay ay, oh ruthless king of the bottomless pit.”

“Don’t test me, Simon, I could still set your underwear on fire,” Jace threatens, but somehow it sounds kind of jokingly. Which is a situation Simon never thought he would find himself in. Joking with the lord of the underworld. What a week. And it’s only Tuesday.

“Yeah, let’s not do that,” Simon says, walking over to his desk, “Bye, Jace, was kind of cool meeting you I guess.”

Jace hums, and then disappears in a cloud of ash.

“Fucking _hell_ ,” Simon mutters, mostly to himself. And then momentarily wonders if Clary would believe him if he told her what had just happened. Probably not.

\--

“Hello.”

Simon, who was in the middle of pulling on a shirt, topples over in fright and lands in a tangled heap on the floor. “Jace!” He exclaims, once he’s managed to untangle himself from the shirt. “What?”

Jace, who is indeed standing in the middle of Simon’s bedroom, just like he had a week ago, snorts. “You’re a mess.”

Simon glares at him from his position on the floor. “I’m aware. Why are you here?”

“Wanted to ask you how your econ test went,” Jace says, casually leaning against Simon’s desk. Or well. The pile of homework, clothes and other miscellaneous items that hide Simon’s desk. He thinks. For all he knows his parents threw his desk away years ago and it is all just pure junk now.

Simon sends him an incredulous look. “You want to know how my econ test went?”

Jace shrugs, “I mean, yeah? You seemed pretty stressed about it, seeing you kicked out the lord of the underworld just so you could study for it.” He tries to make it sound aloof, but to Simon’s great surprise he actually sounds a bit hurt. What the fuck.

“So that’s what this is about,” Simon says, rolling his eyes, “You’re still bitter I kicked you out.”

“What? No!” Jace says, rather defensively, “I genuinely just wanted to know how your test went.”

“Sure,” Simon mutters, unconvinced. He tries to mirror the same relaxed lean Jace is doing, but misses the doorway and stumbles backward a little bit. He quickly rights himself, crosses his arms, and decides leaning is for show offs anyway.

“So?” Jace asks, after a relatively awkward silence, in which Jace just sort of _stared_ at Simon while Simon performed his whole leaning dance.

“So, what?”

“So, how did your test go?”

“You really want to know?” Jace nods. Simon sighs. “Fine, I guess. I won’t know for sure until I get my grade next week.” He looks down at his nails and momentarily wonders if they have manicures in hell. He considers asking Jace. Then he realizes that that’s a stupid thought and drops it.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Simon says, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. “So, anything else? Cause me and my friend were kind of planning to-“

“I cannot believe you,” Jace interrupts. “You’re kicking me out again.”

“Well, I mean, you could join, but I just didn’t think ‘the lord of the underworld’ would be interested in _mini golf_ of all things, so I-“

“I like mini golf,” Jace says, rather petulantly.

“I mean, you can still join if you want to?” Simon asks, slightly confused about what was going on and how his life got to a point where he is quite seriously inviting Satan out for mini golf.

“No, it’s too late now,” Jace says, and disappears in a cloud of smoke, leaving Simon standing alone and confused in his bedroom.

“Right,” Simon sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Weirdo.”

Jace’s disembodied voice suddenly booms through the room, scaring the absolute crap out of Simon.

“I heard that!”

\--

“Seriously?! Again?!” Simon exclaims, when Jace appears at the front of his bed. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this, buddy. It’s getting ridiculous.”

“You never told me you econ grade,” Jace says with a shrug, sitting down on the desk chair and idly fiddling with a fidget spinner that he must’ve dug up out of the deep dark cave that is Simon’s desk.

“You really aren’t going to let that one go, are you?” Simon asks, throwing his books aside and settling in a little bit more comfortably. He’s pretty sure he’s not going to study anymore, not now Jace and his ridiculously chiseled jaw are here to distract him.

“I’m hooked now,” Jace says, throwing down the fidget spinner and picking up a pencil. “It’s the thrilling saga of the idiot who summoned me by accident and then continued to kick me out. Twice.”

Simon huffs, “In my defense you show up at really inopportune times.”

“ _You_ summoned _me_ ,” Jace says, sounding appropriately incredulous.

“Accidentally!” Simon exclaims. Jace simply rolls his eyes. “Hey,” Simon says, “hey, I know something. Let me make it up to you. I’ll take you out for coffee, and I’ll even _pay_ , and then you can stop showing up in my bedroom unannounced and I can stop kicking you out and asking you about your horns.”

Jace sends him a ‘don’t you dare’ kind of look, and then seems to consider it. “Fine.”

Simon jumps off the bed, and then pauses. “Wait, do you even have coffee in hell?”

Jace hums, and summons a leather jacket out of nowhere. Because _of course_ the king of hell owns a leather jacket. He looks really good in it too. Simon’s starting to regret this whole thing. “Not really. Me and the demons, we don’t really need it. We do have some fun coffee related punishments, though. They especially get creative with those in the corporate punishment department. Only drink decaf for the rest of damnation, that sort of thing.”

“That doesn’t seem that bad,” Simon says, grabbing a jean jacket out of a pile of mostly clean clothes. “Unpleasant, definitely, but not horrifying.”

“They drink it while being tied down to a burning table while being whipped repeatedly.” Jace says, rather stone faced for someone who just made that kind of terrifying statement.

“Right,” Simon says, “Remind me to never get on your bad side.” And then whirls out of the room, Jace following behind.

\--

Simon is seriously praying no one asks him on Monday how his weekend was, because he isn’t really sure how to word ‘I had coffee with the devil and it was surprisingly pleasant’ without sounding like a complete lunatic.

Jace apparently drinks latte’s with loads of syrup and whipped cream, and the discovery delights Simon to no end. Jace just frowns at him, but its not the ‘drinking only decaf tied to a burning table for the rest of eternity’ kind of frown. It’s the ‘god you’re an idiot but like, a fun idiot’ kind of frown, and Simon nearly blurts out that Jace should really frown like that more often. It looks good on him.

But then again, anything looks good on Jace.

Simon tells Jace about his mom, and his sister, and his best friend Clary, and how he still isn’t sure what he wants his major to be, and that any and all thought of the future absolutely terrifies him. He tells him about his friends, about Raphael and Maia, who think he’s an idiot but still love him, and about his classes, and how he hates most of them, but his mom really wants him to go into a financial field because it’s where money is made. He talks about his band, and how that’s never going to take off, but that that’s what he wants more than anything.

He tells Jace a lot more than he’s ever told anyone, more than he’s ever told Clary. But it’s different somehow. Because Jace is the devil, and is the devil not already supposed to know everything anyway? All your flaws, all your bad habits. Besides, Simon’s probably not going to see Jace ever again after this. Surely the ruler of eternal damnation has better things to do than to hang out with some scrappy college kid who likes to doodle satanic symbols.

The thought both comforts and saddens him.

In turn, Jace tell him about his family. Not his biological one, but the one he found all on his own. He talks about Izzy, and Alec, and how they met. He talks about all the shenanigans they get up to, but spares the gruesome details. It’s almost like he wants Simon to hear the good things about him, the things that make him human, make him real, rather than all the stuff that makes him ‘The King Of The Underworld’.

Simon finds he kind of likes it.

“Do you have TV down there?” Simon asks, when they sit down after getting a second round of coffee.

Jace shakes his head, “No. I mean we use them as-“

“Punishing methods, I get it.”

“I was going to say side tables,” Jace says, jokingly, and Simon snorts.

He stirs milk into his own plain black coffee. “But then how do you keep up with the Kardashians?”

“I don’t,” Jace deadpans. “I have seen an episode of Game of Thrones once, though. That seemed like fun. Lots of blood. Made it feel like home.”

Simon fake gags. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I am, the blood is more of an occupational hazard than a real pleasure for me.” Jace dips his spoon in his whipped cream and then licks it off. Rather obscenely. Simon is hit with the momentary thought that this might actually be a _date_ , and then shakes it off immediately. That’s ridiculous. Who on earth goes on a date with the devil? Speaking off…

“How’s dating in the after life?” Simon asks, genuinely curious about the answer.

Jace makes a noncommittal noise. “I mean. We don’t really have Tinder, if that’s what you’re asking. I haven’t actually dated anyone long term, ever. There’s not really an opportunity for that. Who would want to date the devil?”

Simon, to his great horror, immediately thinks that he would very much like to date the devil.

God, what has his life become.

“Besides, there’s not really much choice for me down there. It’s either the miserable inhabitants of hell or the demons, who like I mentioned before are practically my brothers and sisters. None of those options really appeal to me.”

“No humans?” Simon asks, pretending he isn’t desperate to hear Jace’s answer.

“It gets complicated. They are immortal. I am not. It’s not worth the hassle.”

Well. Okay. That curbs that, admittedly ridiculous, fantasy. If anything, Jace has a point. What worth is there in dating someone if you are going to outlive them anyway? Simon figures he’s going to have to find his love a little closer to home. Maybe he can finds someone who doesn’t enjoy torturing people in his spare time. His mother would like that.

Deciding the conversation has officially gotten too gloomy, he switches the subject to a story about him and Clary, and firmly tells his heart to cool it.

Him and Jace just aren’t going to happen.

\--

Despite earlier presumptions, it is not the last time Simon sees Jace. In fact, their little coffee moment has only seemingly increased the times Jace shows up in his bedroom (completely at random and absolutely uninvited, mind you). Simon finds himself not really minding. He has given up any hope of ever dating Jace, but that doesn’t mean he’s not nice to have around. Jace is clearly very detached from normal human life, and it leads to some seriously hilarious but worrying moments.

Like that time Simon was complaining about his business management professor and Jace very seriously offered to set him on fire.

Simon almost considered it, too.

(“I could just torture him a little, too,” Jace had said, leaning forward, “Like, nothing too obvious. Maybe he just gets stuck in traffic every time he steps into a car. Or he always finds the cereal box empty. You know, little things.”)

Overall, it was kind of nice, having a friend who’s literal job it was to make people feel eternal pain. It offered a whole new perspective on life.

However, Jace’s whole ‘barging in unannounced’ thing was slowly becoming a problem.

\--

Simon steps out of the shower, softly humming under his breath. He’s had a tune stuck in his head all week, and it’s slowly starting to take the form of a new song. He hopes he can write it down later today, and maybe actually finish it for the band’s new gig. They could seriously use some new material to play.

He wraps a towel around his waist, and wanders into his bedroom, blissfully unaware of his surroundings. Which would be fine, if his bedroom would have actually been as empty as it usually is when he steps out of the shower. Instead, Jace is there, on the bed, letting out a very intelligent “Uh, hi?” Making Simon nearly drop his towel in fright.

“JACE LUCIFER PERCIVAL MORGENSTERN,” he exclaims, scrambling to get some clothes.

Jace who has turned an interesting shade of red, mutters, “Percival is not actually one of my-“

Simon interrupts him. “What are you even _doing_ here?! Listen, I get that you’re one of the higher ups and most of the time you can literally do whatever you want, but you can’t just _barge in here and_ -“

This time it’s Jace’s time to interrupt. “Would you like to go to the movies with me,” He says, forgetting to actually frame it as a question.

“What?” Simon says, confused.

“A movie,” Jace says. “You like movies, right? I thought we could go see one. I don’t really know how it works, but you talk about them all the time so I thought maybe you would want to go and-“

This time it’s Simon’s turn to interrupt, saving Jace from his uncharacteristic rambling. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I would like a movie. Hey, you uhm, you want to watch the new Marvel movie?”

“Marvel?” Jace asks, scrunching up his face. He looks insanely cute and Simon considers punching him in the face to stop making him look like that. But then he remembers that Jace is the devil and could actually make someone punch him in the face for the rest of eternity in turn, and drops the thought.

Instead, he focuses on the clear travesty at hand, “You don’t know what Marvel is? Oh my god, oh boy. Strap in, my dude. We are going on an adventure,” he takes Jace’s hand and starts dragging him out the room, chattering happily about superheroes and multiverses. He’s so engrossed in his explanation, he never realizes Jace lacing their fingers together.

\--

So they go to the movies, and it feels an awful lot like a date, and Simon tries very hard to remind himself that it isn’t. But it’s made difficult by Jace somehow being a perfect gentleman, by buying the tickets and the popcorn and helping Simon out of his coat for some goddamn reason.

But it’s just because Jace doesn’t _know_ how friends act with each other, Simon reminds himself, being the devil and all. Maybe in hell it’s very normal to buy your friends popcorn and help them out of their coats and hold their hand when the movie gets scary.

God, Simon wishes his life was less complicated sometimes.

But anyway, they go to the movies, and a week later they go again, and then they go bowling, and they go for _dinner_ and if Simon didn’t know any better he’d say him and Jace were dating, but he does know better. After the whole ordeal with Clary, he’s learned his lesson about mistaking friendship for romance, and he’s not going to fall into that rabbit hole again.

But it’s _hard_ , when Jace smiles at him like that, or makes him laugh with his weird hell stories, or just _exists_ really. Jace is unlike anyone Simon has ever met, aside from the fact he’s Satan. He’s fiercely loyal while also being a massive dick sometimes, he’s funny without ever really realizing it, and he’s handsome without trying. He’s the culmination of Simon’s dream man and he is also so far off limits he might as well be living on a different planet.

It’s a bit depressing, is all.

But unobtainable or not, Simon does really like spending time with Jace, which is how he finds himself laying in an abandoned field, in the middle of the night, staring up at the stars. Jace is laying next to him, pointing to a constellation. “That one kind of looks like you,” he says, very seriously.

Simon tilts his head. “No, it doesn’t. It kind of looks like a dick, if I’m honest.”

Jace turns to him with a mischievous glint in his eyes, “Isn’t that what I said?”

“You’re mean,” Simon says, pouting at him.

Jace laughs, but then his face turns serious, “Would you,” he pauses, looking up at the stars. “If you had the chance, would you want to become immortal?”

Simon snorts, not picking up on the serious tone in Jace’s voice. “What, so I can look like a dick constellation for the rest of eternity? No thank you.”

Jace hits him, “I’m _serious_.”

“Well that’s a first,” Simon says, sticking out his tongue. He pauses then, thinking about the question. An eternity without his friends, his family. An eternity pining after a man who’s never going to want him back. An eternity being reminded of what he can’t have. “No, no I don’t think I’d want that,” he says softly, not looking at Jace. “I don’t think I could handle it. A life time without my loved ones seems absolutely terrible, no offense.” He obviously doesn’t add the stuff about the pining.

Jace sits up abruptly, his face turned to stone. “No offense? Really? How am I not supposed to take offense to that, Simon? I mean, I know we haven’t said I love you and all that, but we’ve been dating for weeks now! Does that not make me a loved one? Because if it doesn’t, I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” He stands up, dusting the grass off of him, leaving an absolutely bewildered Simon sitting alone in the grass.

“Dating? I love you? What?” Is all Simon manages to stutter out, which only seems to enrage Jace more. Normally, an angry lord of the underworld would scare the absolute crap out of Simon, but right now he’s just really, _really_ confused. “What are you talking about?”

Jace’s eyes light up, as in, literal flames appear in his pupils. Simon scoots back a bit in fear. “Oh, so now you don’t even want to _acknowledge_ our relationship? You know, I never should have listened to Izzy. ‘Go date a mortal, it’ll be fun!’, ‘You like him, just ask him to the movies, that’s what humans do!’ Bullshit!”

Slowly, things are starting to click into place for Simon. “Wait, you thought that when you asked me to the movies you asked me out on a date?”

“Didn’t I?” Jace asks, frustrated, “That’s how you humans do it, right?”

“Yeah, sometimes, but friends do that as well!” Simon exclaims, feeling like he was three steps behind this entire conversation. “Clary and I go to the movies all the time! It’s not a synonym for dating!”

“Right,” Jace says “I should’ve known. Who would want to actually date the ruler of the undead, right?”

“That’s not what I-“ Simon desperately starts, but Jace interrupts him.

“Forget it. I’m done. Bye, Simon. See you when you’re dead.” And with that absolutely morbid goodbye, Jace disappears in a cloud of smoke, leaving an absolutely confused and blindsided Simon behind.

“FUCK!” He yells, but aside form a few spooked night owls, there’s no one there to hear him.

\--

Desperate, and on his last legs, Simon finally turns to Clary. He’s not sure it’s the best idea he’s ever had, but right now it feels like his only one, because he needs _someone_ to share this absolutely bonkers story with, and he feels like Clary is the only one who will believe him.

Surprisingly she does. Surprisingly, she’s very chill about it. Unsurprisingly, she thinks he is an idiot.

“So you had a cute, strong, attractive boyfriend who wanted to spent the rest of eternity with you and you _let him go_?!” She asks, and then hits him with her sketch book. “Simon Lewis, you _dumbass_.”

“Yes, thank you, I realized that,” Simon says, rubbing the spot on his arm where she hit him.

“Well?” She says, gesturing with her hands, “Then fix it!”

Simon flops down on her bed, pouting miserably. “But how? I can hardly march into hell and play him romantic get back together with me songs on a boombox while declaring my everlasting love for him.”

Clary raises an eyebrow.

\--

So that’s how Simon finds himself at the entrance to hell, boombox tucked under his arm. The location of the entrance to hell was surprisingly easy to find, but Simon thinks that’s because there’s a big difference between knowing where the entrance to hell is and actually entering it. Which Simon is about to do. With a _boombox_. God, what has his life become.

He takes a deep breath, and steps forward. The entrance is just a large cave, followed by a winding staircase that goes down. He starts ascending slowly, because the boombox is fucking _heavy_ , and also who on earth would willingly _run_ into hell? He’s mad, but he’s not _that_ mad. Who knows what’s waiting for him around the corner?

\--

Jace is not moping. He’s not, okay. It’s just. After years of being alone he thought he’d finally found someone he could at least spent _some_ of eternity with. But then it turned out he had been reading _all_ of the signs wrong and now here he is, all alone on his throne in _hell_.

Okay, maybe he’s moping a little bit.

He’s just thinking about ways to stop moping, when he hears a ruckus behind one of the doors of the Throne Room, the one leading to Corporate Punishment. A bunch of demons in three piece suit come in, dragging a figure between them. A figure that looks suspiciously like-

“Simon?” Jace asks, confused. “Is that you?”

“Hello!” Simon waves, looking ridiculously guilty, “I brought a boombox.”

Jace blinks. “ _Why_?”

Simon scrunches up his face. “I’ve been an idiot.”

“That’s no news.”

Simon lets out a frustrated sigh. “Will you just? I’ve been an idiot okay? Because you told me we were dating, and I didn’t _know_ we were dating, so I was confused, and you took that as me rejecting you, and I’m _sorry_.”

“Right,” Jace says, face stony. He’s still trying to decide whether Simon is for real or if he’s pulling some sort of stupid prank. “Does not explain the boombox.”

“Oh,” Simon says, catching on to the coldness in Jace’s voice and sounding dejected. “Yeah. I was going to do this whole romantic gesture with holding the boombox over my head and everything, but then I ran into the guys from corporate,” he gestures to the demons standing next to him, “and they sort of man handled me in here. I’m sorry, I had this whole thing planned, I was going to play you ABBA, because I know you _hate_ ABBA so I thought it would be funny and-“

Simon is interrupted by Jace grabbing the front of his shirt and kissing the goddamn daylights out of him.

Because the only thing that can explain the absolute stupidity of walking into hell to play Satan a song by his least favorite band is, well.

It’s love.


End file.
